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Part II: The Epitaths Of The 62 NYS Senators
By MICHAEL SCHENKLER
Joe Orovic, one of our reporters with sharp mind and inquisitive soul, after reading my column Writing The Epitaths Of The 62 NYS Senators, asked me last week: “So Mike, do this mean we’re not going to endorse a single incumbent New York State Senator?”
Damn straight Joe, I thought as I told him: “You remind me of this column and their performance a year-and-a-half from now when they run again. It’s our job to remind the people that these bums put their party and power and perks ahead of people and principle. They have sold out the people of New York State – failed them miserably – and not one of them sholud ever receive our support or the vote of the people again.”
And that was mild. The newsroom continued the discussion with me on the sidelines. “Anyone of them could have stopped this nonsense which has frozen the State for the better part of three weeks. Any small group stepping forward demanding that their conference meet and do business and not posture for leadership and control and member items and stipends and perks and committee chairs and the like. It takes only a majority of New York State Senators – 32 of 62 – to raise their hands and do the State’s business. Address Mayoral Control of School, approve or enable local actions essential to the City and Counties across the State, sit, meet and deliberate on the issues before the State Legislature.
But no, they have not for over three weeks . . . as a matter of fact, they have not for most of the past decades. These sheep wait for instructions from their leaders who are only concerned with perpetuating their power – which is perpetuated by giving goodies away to their loyal members – goodies funded by the people of New York State.
They have failed us — each and every one of them who followed the self-serving leaders down the do-nothing path. Shame on them. Shame on them all.
Now Joe, now readers, now everyone, repeat after me, “I will never, ever cast a vote for any one of the 62 New York State Senators.”
In Queens, that’s Joe Addabbo, Jr, Shirley Huntley, Hiram Monserrate, George Onorato, Frank Padavan, Malcolm Smith, Toby Stavisky. Half of them are friends of mine but I have no intention on ever advocating they be returned to office. Remind me please, that no matter how sincere and hard-working Toby Stavisky may be, she went along to get ahead. Remind me that Joe Addabbo, a member of the new class with a bright future chose to be one of the bleating sheep instead of shouting for the people.
Where, during the past three weeks, were their voices screaming for change, screaming for session, screaming for the people? They each sat silently waiting for their party’s leadership to get control so their individual budgets would be bloated and positions enhanced.
The party doesn’t matter, Frank Padavan is as bad as Shirley Huntley, George Onorato, or Hiram Monserrate or– whew, sorry Frank. But he, too, stood for playing for power instead of the people.
Malcolm Smith was given his chance. Failure. Just like each of his colleagues, it’s time to hang up the political spikes and seek employment elsewhere. We don’t want you back.
We’re mad as hell and we’re not going to take it anymore!
Sadly, the next time they stand for election is in 2010 – a long way off.
But we shall remember.
Each of you screwed the people.
And friends, it didn’t feel very good.
MSchenkler@QueensTribune.com
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| Queens NYS Senators who chose power and perks over the people: Joe Addabbo, Jr, Shirley Huntley, Hiram Monserrate, George Onorato, Frank Padavan, Malcolm Smith, Toby Stavisky.
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Exploring Lines of Succession To Vacant Public Offices
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| Henry Stern
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By
HENRY STERN
As of this writing, since the Great Senate Impasse, triggered by the Blackberry Turnover that took place suddenly and without warning, no public business has been transacted by the New York State Senate.
Both sides may be coming to realize that they lose more by prolonging the dispute than they stand to gain in power and patronage.
Under constant pounding from New York’s tabloids, with public opinion of the Senate dropping to new lows, and with no support from any outside observers, the pirates are likely to share the loot resulting from the June 8 coup, in which a temporary majority elected new leaders and adopted new rules. What we called the Blackberry Turnover (in honor of Malcolm Smith playing with his Blackberry in the presence of the billionaire who financed the coup) is likely to end not with a bang, but with a whimper.
We will therefore depart from our usual remonstrance about the reprobates, and devote the day’s discussion to providing information on how vacancies in high office are customarily filled in American politics. We hope the warring parties will call off their blood feud. Eventually, it becomes tiresome, especially to those who have little sympathy for either side.
NATURE ABHORS A VACUUM
If we have learned one thing from this unfolding circus, it is that the Senate, like most courts, corporate boards and other deliberative bodies, should consist of an odd, not an even, number of members.
Since there are two Senators from each state, the U.S. Senate will always have an even number of members. However, there is a Vice President, who is also President of the Senate, and he can cast a vote to break a tie. In the State of New York, it is the Lieutenant Governor who can break a tie. The problem is we have none, since March 17, 2008, when Mr. Paterson was sworn in as Governor, replacing the disgraced Eliot Spitzer, who resigned, in part to avoid prosecution and in part to avoid impeachment.
The Federal government recognized the problem of vacancies in high office two score and four years ago, and the Twenty-Fifth Amendment to the Constitution was proposed in 1965 and ratified in 1967. The concern followed the assassination of President Kennedy in 1963. Lyndon Johnson succeeded JFK immediately, but there was no Vice President between November 22, 1963 and January 20, 1965. The next in line for the presidency during that period was John W. McCormack, Speaker of the House.
The Speaker has not always been third in line. Until Harry Truman took office on April 12, 1945, following the death of FDR, the next in line was the Secretary of State, followed by the Secretary of the Treasury and other cabinet officers. Truman proposed the insertion of the Speaker of the House and the President pro tempore of the Senate, preceding the cabinet members. He did not want either his first two secretaries of state to become President.
It is noteworthy that, although FDR died only 82 days into his fourth term, and Truman would serve the remaining 1,359 days of the four years to which Roosevelt had been elected, there was no pressure at the time to amend the Constitution to provide for the selection of a new vice president
As luck would have it, the post-Biden succession in 2009 would go to Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and then the 91-year-old Senator Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia. If the 1945 change had not been passed, the next two in line would have been Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, followed by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.
The 25th Amendment provides that, in the event of a vacancy in the office of Vice President, the President may nominate a candidate, and the nomination must be confirmed by a majority vote in each of the two houses of Congress. This procedure has been used twice. When Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned in 1973 as the result of a bribery investigation, President Nixon nominated Representative Gerald Ford to succeed him. When, a year later, President Nixon himself resigned to avert impeachment over Watergate, President Ford filled the Vice Presidency he had vacated by selecting Nelson A. Rockefeller, the former four-term governor of New York State.
In response to pressure from more conservative Republicans, Ford did not select Vice President Rockefeller for the 1976 ticket. Kansas Senator Robert Dole was chosen as the Republican candidate for Vice President. The Ford-Dole team lost to Carter-Mondale, with Dole becoming the only recent major party candidate to lose separate elections for Vice President and President; he was defeated by Clinton in 1996. FDR lost for Vice President in 1920, but he was subsequently elected President four times. That led to the passage of the 22nd Amendment in 1947, although it was not ratified until 1951. That amendment, sponsored largely by Republicans, prohibited anyone from being elected President more than twice. It provided for a national term limit for the executive branch.
No subsequent President or Congress sought to overturn this amendment by legislation, even when it stood in the way of the all-too-human desire to provide continued public service in parlous times. Ronald Reagan could well have won a third term, but he respected the law as it stood, and returned home to California when his second term expired in 1989. That is one reason he is widely respected today, even by people who disagree with many of his positions. He accepted the law as it was, as every President has.
The New York State Senate and the City Council notwithstanding, there is honor, decency and responsibility in politics. In some places, you just have to look hard to find it.
StarQuest@NYCivic.org |
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Not4Publication.com by Dom Nunziato |
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